Navigate Result Sets

This chapter materializes active-buffer matches, filters and visits their source locations, refreshes the result set, prepares one result-set edit, and applies or discards it safely.

Before You Begin

If you enter this chapter directly, first complete Prepare the User Guide Exercises.

Complete Replace Text. The practice file is supplied by the exercise kit. Restore the notes group, then open the fresh working copy:

~/odra-guide/kit/bin/odra-guide reset notes
odra ~/odra-guide/work/dirs/notes/editing-practice.txt

Materialize Search Matches

Press C-s, type Observation, then press M-s o while search remains active. Odra closes the transient search prompt and opens a persistent result surface containing the retained matches.

The source buffer remains live. The result surface temporarily owns input and remembers the editing location to which it will return. Each row includes the source location and nearby text, with the exact match styled by the active theme:

11:01   Observation 01: clear
12:01   Observation 02: clear

Line and column fields are independently zero-padded to the widths required by the source file. This aligns decimal positions and separators without making the rendered text into navigation authority.

Filter and Move Through Results

Use Down, Up, M-n, or M-p to move the selected result. Press > to select the last row and < to return to the first.

Type rain to show only rows whose copied candidate text matches that filter. Press Backspace to broaden the list again. Filtering changes the visible projection; it does not run another source search or create another result set.

Press Enter on one selected row. Odra revalidates its buffer revision and exact range, returns to the source document, and places point at that match.

Continue from the Editor

After visiting one row, press M-g M-n to move to the next location in the active result source. Press M-g M-p to move to the previous one. These commands use the same ordered result identities without reopening the list.

If a target becomes stale or unavailable, Odra reports it and preserves the current editing location instead of deriving authority from the displayed row.

Refresh the Result Set

Materialize Observation again with C-s, the query, and M-s o. Move to a middle row and press g.

Odra reruns the captured query and replaces the result generation. It retains the selected logical location when that match still exists, removes stale matches, and adds newly discovered ones. Refresh is rejected while staged result edits remain unapplied.

Stage and Apply an Edit

With a clean active-buffer result set open, select one row and press e. The bottom prompt contains the exact matched source text. Replace Observation with Reading and press Enter.

The result row now carries a staged replacement, but the source buffer has not changed. Press q; Odra refuses to close because unapplied edits are protected.

Press C-g on the result surface to discard the staged edit. The result set becomes clean and the source remains unchanged.

Stage the same replacement again, then press C-c C-c. Odra preflights the source revision and range and applies the staged proposal as one transaction. The result set refreshes or marks its generation stale according to the result. Return to the source and press C-/ once to undo the applied edit.

C-g inside the edit prompt cancels only that prompt and preserves edits staged earlier in the same result projection.

Close the Result Surface

Open a clean result set and press q. Odra releases that result generation and returns to the checked editing context that opened it. Source buffers remain live, and search history is unchanged.

Closing does not delete source buffers or discard staged changes silently. Use C-c C-c to apply staged edits or C-g on the result surface to discard them explicitly before closing.

Verify the Result

You have completed this chapter when you can materialize aligned source previews, filter and move without losing result identity, visit and continue through locations, refresh a captured query, distinguish staged from published text, protect dirty results from closing, discard one proposal, apply another, and undo the applied transaction.

Continue with Search Projects and Symbols to extend the common location workflow beyond one active buffer.

Previous: Replace Text · User Guide · Next: Search Projects and Symbols